


Lights Out, Words Gone

by ectoBisexual



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Abusive Bro Strider, Alternate Universe - Human, Child Abuse, Deaf Character, Eventual Smut, Humanstuck, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Praise Kink, Sign Language, Social Anxiety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-11
Updated: 2013-08-11
Packaged: 2017-12-23 03:22:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/921404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ectoBisexual/pseuds/ectoBisexual
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time you ever see Karkat Vantas, you're sixteen years old and not in a very good place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dave

The first time you ever see Karkat Vantas, you're sixteen years old and not in a very good place.

It's the evening of your first night out of the house with friends, your first time drinking, your eleventh time having to come up with an excuse for your bruises to your three friends. You are telling them that no, your bruises are not anything serious, yes, you are aware that falling down the stairs twice a week is pretty clumsy, yes, you are comfortable with that.

You're a Strider, you say.

You can handle it.

You first see him standing against an outline of smoke and incense right in the heart of the city, the lights bouncing off of his mahogany hair. He's with a girl, and he looks happy, and for that you hate him almost instantly. You take a bitter sip of your bitter beer and cast a bitter glance at him half a beat too short for him to look up and notice you, because when he does, you've just looked down at your scuffed shoes and he goes back to looking at his companion and that's all you see of each other all night.

That's it. It's nothing significant. Nothing to rush home and write in your diary about. (You do not have a diary. Your Bro would detest that. You are a Strider. You are a Strider. You do not need to write about your feelings, because you do not have any.)

And that night your dreams are as lacking of colour as always, and you do not think about him for another year.

 

The second time you ever see Karkat Vantas, you've just turned seventeen and you're in love with your best friend John.

Contrary to popular belief, this is not a bad thing, because John loves you back enough to hold your hand when you first tell him and after about two weeks of this he leans across your bed while you're watching TV and kisses you shyly. He's blushing violently and he's a terrible kisser but you thread your fingers through his black hair and he puts his legs on either side of you and up until this moment, you were unaware what it felt like to be touched by another human being and have it feel so wonderful and gentle. It is not, however, love, and when he pulls away from the kiss with red cheeks you're reluctant to admit that your expression is slightly more disappointed than his. You would have gone back to being friends, you think, with absolutely no complaints, only then Bro walked in and...

Well.

You don't want to talk about it.

Anyway, the reason you see Karkat is because three days after that you decide to run away.

You wake up one morning, and it is eight o'clock, and Bro is passed out on the futon so you steal twenty bucks for a train ticket and food and you disappear into the city for a whole three days before anybody finds you.

On the first of these three days, after spending the day walking around watching buskers and tracing your hand along pretty grafittin in dodgy alley-ways, you see this kid across the street that looks familiar enough you have to stop. It takes you ten minutes to remember where you last saw him, something akin to seeing a particularly attractive face in a High School crowd and later seeing them in the yearbook. He's not with the girl this time, just sitting on a bench by himself with a book open on his lap that he's not reading. You hold eye contact with him for an entire minute before he looks back down, so you cross the road and go sit with him.

You say, "Do you live in the city?"

He doesn't hear you. So again, you say, "Do you live here, in the city?"

This time he looks up at you, eyes kind of wide, and you realise that he is really, really, inconceivably and unconventionably pretty. He's got these very light, fine lashes that are so long they almost make his eyes look feminine, these brown eyes so brown that they're almost the same dark red brick dust shade as his hair, these freckles all over his nose, peppered everywhere so precisely it could have been done on purpose, these perfect pink little lips right in the centre of it all. He opens his mouth, for a moment, like he's going to answer you, and then he shuts it and looks annoyed. He takes his phone out of his pocket and starts to mess with it.

"If you want me to fuck off, you can just say so," you tell him, but he doesn't answer you again. "Seriously. If I'm being creepy, or whatever, just tell me. Do you want me to go? It's just that I think I've seen you before, and-"

He shoves his phone in your face. You blink, waiting for your eyes to adjust behind your shades- and what you would do without them you don't want to think about, no, no, no, You Are A Strider, to be seen without these shades is to be caught naked and defenseless and what your Bro would do to you if he caught you with them off you don't want to think about- and are finally able to read the text on the screen. All in capitals, the same grey as the sky: I AM DEAF.

"Oh," you say, and realise he can't hear you. "Oh, sorry," you say anyway, because you don't know what else to do, and you feel sick with guilt and embarrassment. Your gut threatens to betray you, to give away the social anxiety you've been battling (or Bro has been battling, has been beating out of you, has been detesting with every ounce of his die-hard cool being) by having you puke in front of this guy, but for all you're worth you hold on and fumble to fish out your own phone, typing a reply.

'sorry', it says. 'im dave strider. i think ive seen you around before.'

He types. He sticks his tongue out when he does it, and it's a darker pink than his lips. 

'DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT, IT'S NOT LIKE IT'S A BIG DEAL OR ANYTHING. DO YOU LIVE IN THE CITY?'

It's funny, the same question you'd asked him, so you chuckle to yourself quietly and type back 'nah, but i think i was here with some friends this time last year and saw you with a girl.'

'SMALL WORLD, HUH? I THINK YOU MEAN TEREZI.'

'thats a cool name. whats yours anyway'

'KARKAT.'

'nice to meet you karkat'

'AND YOU, DAVE STRIDER. SO IF YOU DON'T LIVE HERE, WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN THE CITY AGAIN? ARE YOU BY YOURSELF?'

'yeah. im running away from home.'

'WHAT? WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING THAT?'

'because reasons'

'ARE THERE ANY SPECIFIC REASONS, OR ARE YOU PLANNING ON BEING A VAGUE ASSHOLE ABOUT THIS WHOLE THING?'

'wow you sure know how to talk a lady up karkat. theyre personal reasons is all. dont need to worry your pretty little head about it.'

'MY HEAD IS PRETTY, NOW, IS IT?'

'the prettiest, like whoa'

'I WISH I COULD SAY THAT I'M NOT TOTALLY FLATTERED, BUT I'M BASICALLY SQUIRMING IN MY PRECIOUS LITTLE MAIDEN PANTIES OVER HERE. SWOON.'

'heh. making bitches swoon is the strider way, man, you say it like im even surprised'

'AND SO MODEST. SO, OKAY, YOU'RE RUNNING AWAY. WHERE ARE YOU STAYING?'

'why, you wanna follow me home and deflower my poor virginal self, karkat?'

'WHAT, GOD, NO. JESUS. BECAUSE I DON'T WANT TO LEAVE YOU OUT IN THE STREETS. YOU'VE BEEN STANDING DOING NOTHING IN PARTICULAR FOR CLOSE TO FORTY FIVE MINUTES NOW, IT KIND OF SEEMS LIKE YOU DON'T HAVE ANYWHERE TO BE.'

You look up at him, and he looks up at you. You raise your brows, but decide not to question whether he was watching you when you go to type your reply.

'yeah well thats probably because i dont. but its like whatever i totally dont care ill be fine im a strider'

'RIGHT, YOU KEEP MENTIONING YOUR LAST NAME LIKE IT'S SUPPOSED TO MEAN SOMETHING TO ME. HOW OLD ARE YOU?'

'seventeen'

'SAME. SO YOU REALLY HAVE NOWHERE TO STAY? WHAT, WERE YOU PLANNING ON SLEEPING ON THE FUCKING STREETS?'

'yep pretty much'

'THAT IS THE STUPIDEST THING I HAVE EVER HEARD. YOU COULD GET ABUSED OR HARRASSED OUT HERE, STRIDER, THAT'S JUST STUPID.'

You are so, so tempted to write back 'wouldnt be the first time' that you almost do, but no, you can't, you are a Strider and that's not the kind of thing a Strider does and shit Karkat is looking at you so openly and honestly with concern that looks so genuine that you almost want to cry.

'not like i have anywhere else to go so whatever', you finally type back, holding your phone up to him but keeping your eyes glued to your other hand in your lap until he's got a reply for you.

'YOU COULD STAY WITH ME.'

'and impose on your family? thanks but no thanks. i dont need your charity anyway but thanks man its totes appreciated'

'OH FUCK WITH YOUR PRIDE BULLSHIT, ASSHOLE, YOU'RE GONNA GET RAPED OUT HERE. JUST. I LIVE WITH TEREZI AND A BUNCH OF COOL PEOPLE, SHE'S A YEAR OLDER AND SHE WONT MIND, SERIOUSLY.'

'where are your parents'

'NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS.'

'right sorry'

You hesitate a moment, and then add,

'i really dont think i should. its not because i dont trust you or whatever, its just that i wasnt kidding when i said i ran away and you could get into a lot of trouble and stuff if anyone found out i was staying with you'

'SO WHAT THE FUCK EVER. LOOK, EITHER COME WITH ME, SO THAT YOU CAN EAT DINNER AND NOT BE IN THE FREEZING FUCKING COLD WEATHER AND HAVE A BED TO SLEEP IN THAT ISN'T OTHERWISE INHABITED BY HOBOS, OR I CAN CALL THE POLICE AND REPORT YOUR SORRY ASS, BECAUSE HELL IF I'M LEAVING YOU TO ROT WITH THE REST OF CHICAGO.'

You stare at him. He stares back. All of Winter's chill around you has settled on the bare parts of your arms, the space between your wrist and forearm, and goosebumps inhabit the skin there. Karkat is biting his lip, bright white teeth against dark pink skin and he is kind of really, really fucking beautiful.

You think this is what those assholes write songs about. People like him, anyway.

He's being too nice.

Go home.

You're a Strider.

You think you might puke.

So you take lots of deep breaths and tell him okay, you'll go home with him, you'll stay with him a bit, and he smiles real genuine and small and gorgeous and takes your hand to help you up. His hair is all messy in the wind and he watches the street performers you pass with an idle curiosity even though he apparently can't hear them. There are holes at the knees of his jeans and bags under his eyes and his knuckles and bruised and scuffed and as well worn as his smile when he decides he likes you enough to show it to you.

Terezi Pyrope is a bony thin girl who looks like a skeleton decorated in sheer black fabric, and she grins a lot. She acts as a sort of translator to Karkat, who apparently knows sign language, and when you're inside he signs some things, looks at you, then signs something else and Terezi turns and introduces herself and says, "Karkles said you can sleep in his room, apparently, so go for it." And when she says 'mi casa e su casa', she pronounces it wrong and you decide you like her alot.

Karkat tells you later that she was almost blind for thirteen years of her life, and has only been able to see for five. She's only that happy because she's a psychopath about colours, and she dresses all in black, he tells you. It's the nicest, least malevolent kind of irony you've ever heard of.

There are three other people in total staying in the dingy little apartment at the back end of town, or maybe that's just all there is tonight. They all hang out in the kitchen and laugh and joke with Karkat even though he can't understand what they're saying and kind of just laughs back and shoves them a lot. The tall, lanky one offers you his joint and Karkat slaps his knee, and the other two- the skinny guy with the 3D-type shades you totally dig and the short girl with the mess of dark curls down her back who keeps touching his shirt- shake your hand but don't tell you their names, so you guess the feeling of anonymity is kind of mutual, and you like that.

Karkat only owns one, single matress, and it's on the floor of a tiny room at the back of the apartment covered in bad movie posters and littered with the covers of romantic comedies that you don't dare make fun of when he's glaring at you like that.

You type him a message asking where you're supposed to be sleeping, and he rolls his eyes. Points to the bed. 'where are you sleeping though' you type, and he repeats the process. 

Oh.

Okay.

Later, it's dark and silent in the room and Karkat's roommates are watching TV loudly, cars are speeding past below, and there is only one blanket that's barely big enough to share. Karkat stares at you in the near-complete darkness, eyes all wide and pretty and speaking entire worlds while his lips stay shut. You stare back through your shades, and it's too late and you're too sleepy to want to find your phone to type something to him, so you whisper in the darkness that he is very lovely and you are very lonely. He seems to register that you're whispering, that you're aware that you're whispering and he can't hear you, and his eyes start to flutter shut every now and again as he watches you, place a hand on your abdomen so that he can feel when you breath and when you talk. You whisper to him that you are nothing but a disappointment to your Bro and he has threatened to kill you for it so, so many times. You whisper to him that he's the nicest person you've ever met and that you'll probably never get to see John again now and that you are very, very tired of having to be alive.

You fall asleep when he does, his arm still on you, cars still speeding by below you heard through a crack in the window that looks old and unfixed.

You're gone by morning. That's all you'll take from him. You won't drag him down into this life of yours, so you spend the night shivering behind a dumpster and the next day the police find you and take you in and identify you and take you back home.

Bro hits you so hard you cough up blood and screams at you until your head is spinning. Then, he gives you a cigarette and says you've earnt it. For not crying, you think. For not begging him to stop like you always do. For leaving and only coming back because you had to.

You smoke it in the dark of your own room until you want to throw up, and you think of Karkat. You think of the colour of his lips and the way he put his hand on you, even though it made you want to cry, the good kind of crying. 

You're right about not seeing John anymore, but he gets this app called pesterchum on his phone and the two of you talk in the early hours of the morning, when Bro doesn't burst in to check what you're doing and you can tell him that he's your best friend and cry without him knowing.

 

The third time you see Karkat, he slaps you right across the face.

It is 8 o'clock at night. You're 22 years old, and today is the day that Bro Strider died of the brain tumour that's been eating away at him since you were old enough to know what a brain tumour even was. You know that it was the tumour that made him act that way, know that it's logical to hate the guy for what he put you through anyway and to be happy to finally be moving out of John's basement and to stop having to pay for the hospital treatments of a man who verbally abuses you from the bed he's practically chained to.

But, you're not.

You know you should be aware that it's not your fault, that he never hit you because anything was really your fault, that you're not fucked up beyond repair and should be wanting to get better and make friends and be happy.

But, you're not. You don't. You are a Strider, and Striders do not get better because they are already the best. If you're fucked up, it's not his fault, and it's just because you're a disgusting, fucked up little shit of a kid. A nightmare to raise. He's probably glad he's dead, because now he doesn't have to deal with you anymore.

You're 22 years old and you only smoke on Fridays, because it was a Friday when you smoked your first cigarette in the dark of your room while Bro listening to you throw up from just outside your door. You remember hearing him sigh. Remember bracing yourself for him to burst in, hit you, tell you to toughen up. 

He didn't, though.

He never hit you when you wanted him to.

You're 22 years old, and for the first time ever, you're back in the city. You don't have anywhere to go, but you've got $400 in your back pocket, that is, four crinkled hundred dollar notes, and it smells like chai and spice and smoke and when you breathe in, you feel like you're a body of water.

When you go to his apartment, it's Terezi who answers the door. She's wearing these ridiculous, poiny red glasses on top of her head, and she peers at you like she's worried you might try to burst in and steal her stuff.

She doesn't recognise you.

You're looking for Karkat, you say.

Your name is Dave Strider.

She remembers you.

Karkat moved.

You say thank you and you turn to leave, but she yanks you inside and says she'll get you his phone number and the lanky stoner guy still lives with her and he makes you the best chocolate milkshake you've ever had in your life while you wait for her.

You text Karkat this obnoxiously long message about being crazy and not knowing anyone else in this goddamned city and he agrees to meet you at this park, only when you show up, he walks right up to you, no hesitation, and slaps you across the face.

He doesn't expect you to flinch like you do.

He doesn't expect you to shake and cry and have to sit down, and he looks at you so sorry and so sincere and you feel sick knowing that he must know what he'd done. He goes to touch you, hold you, maybe, but he stops because you're shaking and you're crying and you haven't touched another human being for more than four years now, not since you moved into John's and started coming out only to go to work and started avoiding everyone, and just looks at you.

You think you're okay after a while. Embarrassed, you type into your phone that you're sorry and that you learnt some sign language but that you're bad at it.

Karkat signs something that you only catch the end of, which is 'you are an idiot', and then he types out 'I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD WHEN YOU LEFT, AND YOU ARE AN IDIOT. WHERE ARE YOU STAYING?'

 

So this is how you end up sharing the rent of this little apartment right in the heart of Chicago with Karkat Vantas. This is how you end up working from home and sharing Chinese every Friday instead of smoking a cigarette with your roommate Karkat Vantas. This is how you end up less dead than you were before, and this is how you fall in love with Karkat Vantas.


	2. Karkat

Your name is Karkat Vantas, and you have been deaf since you were five years old, and you hit your head in the crash that killed your two parents and older brother.

Breathe.

In.

Out.

Breathe.

Where are you?

You are in your apartment, this little uptown Chicago place it took you all six years of your teen life to save up for, and you are watching your roommate Dave through a tiny crack in the door as he stares at his hands in his lap and listens to the music pumping through his headphones. You wish you could listen to music, barely remember what it sounds like. Barely remember what anything sounds like.

You've been taking speech therapy.

Your speech therapist, Feferi, tells you with a very positive grin that you are actually getting quite good, and you don't sound as silly as some people do when they can't hear their voice.

This probably means that you still sound silly.

You don't mind, because all you want to do is talk to Dave.

The first time you met him you'd been watching him pace the same short block of concrete for more than half an hour, and then he came over and tried to talk to you and you almost died with embarrassment when you realised.

You just. You wish you could hear. Just some things. Not all things. You just want one day when you can hear one thing, just Dave's voice, just this album that he's listened to five times these past three days, just the cars speeding by on the pretty highway that your apartment overlooks. 

Dave is broken, but then again, so are you. You've always been broken. Your ears don't work, just like his mind sort of doesn't work, but the difference between the two of you is that you were in a car crash and Dave's older brother abused him because of a brain tumour that made him act like the biggest asshole to ever walk the blatantly dismal chasm know as Earth.

He doesn't talk about it much.

You only know, because sometimes he whispers it to you. Sometimes he types vague sentences to you, and sometimes he signs to you that you're his best friend but he doesn't want you to touch his back because once his older brother held him against a wall and hit his back over and over until it was bright red and stinging and he couldn't lay down properly for days.

So he flinches when you try to touch him, but he's getting better at it, because for the past four months, he's stopped sleeping in his own bed and he's started climbing into yours.

You know that it's not what friends do, and you know that the way you look at him has to mean something to him even if he really can't see anything behind the shades he almost never takes off, but it's so hard to care late at night when he takes those deep breaths and scoots as close to you as he dares, lets you put your arm around him and buries his head in the nape of your neck where your pulse beats out the gentle rhythm of some love song you'll never hear against his hair.

Right now, you've just gotten home from work. You were going to walk in and sit with him, sign with him or type to him and watch movies or play video games like you normally do when you get home, but today is different, because today you find yourself just watching Dave sit there, just watching him stare at a wall like he's never been loved and it makes your heart leap to your throat and sit there until it threatens to make you scream a scream you won't even be able to hear.

Finally shaking out of it, you push past the door and he looks up, startled. He flinched, you think, and your stomach clenches. If Bro Strider weren't dead already, you think you might kill him.

You offer him a smile and go and sit next to him, and in your best slow, careful voice, you ask him how his day was.

Dave always smiles when you talk for him. He says that your voice is croaky and pretty and you don't know if that's a good thing, but it must be, because he always lights up when you speak. Dave signs back 'good, how was yours', but he says the words as he signs them, and you haven't told him yet, but you're getting okay at reading lips.

You don't tell him because you want to be able to understand those things he whispers to you in the middle of the night without him knowing.

You want to know what he isn't telling you.

The two of you talk for a while, like you normally do, and then Dave asks if you want to watch a movie so you put something on and order Chinese because it's a Friday and you always order Chinese on Fridays. You sit side by side. You're close but you're not touching, and Dave smells incredibly good. It's moments like these that you want to reach out and touch him, but you can't becaus he isn't exactly used to your touch when he's not initiating it himself and he still jumps when you get too close too fast.

His Bro told him that no one would ever love him, he told you once, and "he's right, because I hate myself more than he ever could."

It's late at night and you're watching Dave as he watches the movie. There are subtitles, but you've seen all of Adam Sandler's attempts at getting Drew Barrymore to remember him a million times and Dave is really pretty in the dim light the lamp is casting and the silvers and blues of the television light.

He's always been really attractive, you think, with this perfectly fine hair so light in colour that it's almost white, this pale skin, the only part of him that isn't scarred anywhere, now that his bruises have faded and he sleeps better hours. When he's not waking up from nightmares. (Though when he is, you're there. You're always there. You just want him to get this.) You know that his eyes are red, because he's removed his shades for you once before, when he was drunk and he let you touch his shoulders and kiss his temples and he shivered and cried when you signed that you loved him, though you're not even sure if he defintely knew what you'd said, because he didn't know very much sign language at the time and his eyes were pretty blurry already from when you'd touched his shoulders and kissed his temples.

You're not sure if you're dating, because you've never kissed him properly and you've never exchanged 'I love you's and you don't call each other your boyfriend or partner or significant other, but Dave sleeps in your bed and you buy each other Chinese food every Friday and Dave tells you what music sounds like sometimes on lazy afternoons when you're letting your fingers run over his and laughing and joking and teasing each other out on the balcony.

'Tonight,' you tell him, signing because you're not incredibly confident with your voice, 'can we try something?'

He looks nervous, but he doesn't say no, so you shut the TV off and very, very carefully, you get up on your knees and reach to pluck his shades off of his face. He reaches up to hold your wrist but he doesn't stop your hand. He takes deep breaths. You smile at him, and his red eyes light up for you.

This isn't what you meant, though, and you wonder if he knows it. Very slowly, you lean in towards him, eyes on his. Dave breathes a lot in these moments. His chest heaves and you think he might be close to hyperventilation at one point, but you shoosh him quietly and reach out to run your hands down his shoulders, down his sides, up his sides, down again, and he shivers, sighs, and relaxes against the headboard.

You wish you could hear him sigh.

When you're close enough that you can feel his breath on yours, see the tremble of his lips and the porcelain of his skin, you look down from his lips to his eyes twice to try and get the message across.

Dave's breath goes a little funny again, against your face. You don't push him, don't press the issue, but very carefully, you move your hand to the back of his neck, move a little closer, and ask in the closest thing to a whisper you know how to do, "Is this okay?"

Dave nods, and mouths maybe half the word yes. You move in and press your lips to his, your eyes fluttering shut.

You don't need to hear him to know that he makes a noise in the back of his throat, because you feel it when you press your chest against his, use your other hand to cup his cheek, move to straddle his hips.

It takes him a while to get the hang of relaxing his mouth and not thinking so much about it, but gradually, Dave unclenches his hand from fists, reaches to very gently pet your back, and kisses back.

You feel something like a whine sitting in the back of your throat when you suck his bottom lip and he opens up for you so eagerly, groans a groan that feels like pure sex as it reverberates through you, want and need and love flaring up inside of you like sparks on a match. His tongue traces yours slowly, dreamily, his expression switching from pained to relaxed and back a number of times, every time you look. You trace your hands down his sides, slip them under his shirt, and he grabs fistfuls of your shirt and wrenches his mouth away from yours.

You shoosh him again, stroke his hair while he breathes it out against your shoulder, shakes and shakes and relaxes again.

You don't have to do this, you tell him, stroking his hair. You're not going to make him do anything he's not comfortable with.

Dave squeezes his hand into fists and looks up at you and nods. His hands are shaking when he tries to sign to you, so he has to start over a couple of times. 'I want you. Please touch me more. I am okay.'

You kiss him like you need him and he melts in your arms, and the next time you put your hands under his shirt to caress bare skin he shivers in the good way and sighs against the bare skin of your neck, so you move to pull it off and you kiss him all over.

Dave is making noises, you can see him making them, opening his mouth into this little 'o' and clenching his teeth and shutting wobbly lips tight when you mouth his neck and find his pulse to suck on, pepper a trail of kisses down to the dip in his collar bones, along his stomach. It tenses and the muscles shift when you touch it, so you chase some of his longer scars with your finger tips, watch as it convulses a little and he vibrates with another noise as he pulls you up for a kiss. You mouth his nipples until he's pulling your hair, until his pupils are blown wide with lust and he's breathing so hard you think he might pass out. 

Hesitantly, you move to press the heel of your hand against his crotch.

Once, Dave briefly told you that his brother used to have him help out with his own twisted franchise of pornographic movies. He never touched Dave, but he had Dave touch himself, and the moment your hand is there he stops breathing.

You look up at him, understanding and gentle and loving and try to convey the words you don't exactly know how to pronounce into the kisses you leave on his throat. "We don't have to," you say, "but it's just me, I'm here, I want to touch you. I want to make you feel good."

You feel his whimper ring against your teeth when you bite down, and then he's tangling his hand in your hair again and pressing up into your touch, urging you to feel for his length through the denim and rub circles with your palm until he's panting again.

You take his pants off as slow as you dare and mouth at his cock through the fabric of his boxers until you can see him saying your name over and over again, that small movement of his lips you've learnt to recognise as Kar-kat. You smile at him, you run your hands down his hips. He needs more, he doesn't tell you this, he needs more, he pushes his hips up at you and whines and looks at you. You pull his boxers down and swallow him to the hilt.

He throws his head back, and yells so loud you feel it when you suck on his cock, hard.

You do this a few times, until you realise he is very close and pull away to instead mouth down the side, press kisses on the head and trace your fingers down the shaft and tell him how good he's being, how good he is for you, how perfect he looks. Dave's crying when you lick a bead of precum from his head, but you've known him long enough to know that this is not a bad thing.

You trace a finger down until it is resting on his entrance and you look up at him.

You sign, "May I?"

He nods so hard you worry he might be in danger of brain damage, and you're smiling when you come back with lube and start to kiss his thighs while you work fingers into him.

He's so beautiful. You tell him this. You love him so much. He is loved. He is loved. You are loved, Dave, you say, and he doesn't respond. You wonder if you said it right. He is so, so beautiful, laid out for you and open like this. You search for his prostate. He screams when you find it.

When you're buried inside of him, Dave rakes nails down your back and sucks on your neck until you're choking around moans that probably sound ridiculous, clenches around you and wraps his legs around you and lets you touch his sides and his thighs and when you both start to get close, starts saying something you don't catch because he's chanting it, babbling it, saying it like a prayer against the thin contrast of your name and his moans.

It takes you a while to realise you know these words, because you've said them in the mirror and watched your own lips.

Dave is saying that he loves you.

It takes this thought and two more thrusts and you are gone, spilling inside of him and pulling out with a shuddery sigh, and it's then that you realise Dave is yelling for you, yelling those same three words and your name and bucking desperately into thin air to try and get you to touch him. You shoosh him. You calm him down. His cock is so hard and so red and swollen at the tip that it looks painful. He is so, so beautiful.

When Dave's stopped yelling, started breathing, you kiss him and ghost your fingers against his arousal. When you stroke him to completion, he is sobbing into your mouth.

When Dave has finished moaning and writhing and staring at the roof but not really seeing anything, he pulls you into his arms slowly and he turns out the light.

You kiss his temples, and this time he shivers but he doesn't cry. He lets you hold him tightly, securely, lovingly, and the two of you fall asleep tangled in the sheets like it's some precious little secret.

He is broken, you think, but then again, you were always good at fixing things.

Your name is Karkat Vantas, and with the lights out, and every word you've ever wanted to speak gone to silence, you are in love.


End file.
